East Village

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT EAST VILLAGE - PAGE 3

Years before David Johansen smeared on lipstick and eyeshadow and slurred rock 'n' roll rants about personality crises, he was a teen bluesman at a Hoot Night at his local Jewish Community Center. It wasn't until later that he realized that Harry Smith, the bespectacled record collector who compiled the "Anthology of American Folk Music," was indirectly responsible for the scene. "['The Anthology' is] like the Rosetta Stone of the folk movement," says Johansen, who, in his post-Hoot Night days, fronted punk pioneers the New York Dolls.

So, where do you live? Are you sure? The name of your neighborhood--and its borders--might be changing. Developers, real estate agents and longtime residents are playing tug-of-war with traditional areas such as Ukrainian Village, Humboldt Park and the South Loop. The fallout is confusion among neighbors and a street-by-street battle between old standards and new labels. Know where East Village is? How about West Loop Gate? New East Side? "It goes on and on," said Columbia College professor Dominic Pacyga.

'Most directors are nervous about actors. Or they despise them." The words, spoken with chipper matter-of-factness, come from director Danny Boyle, whose resume includes "Shallow Grave," "Trainspotting," "28 Days Later" and the science-fiction thriller "Sunshine," which opens Friday. "I edited 'Sunshine' for a year, and shot it the year before, 2005," Doyle said. "It took a long time. The traditional thinking in movies is that if you shoot on water, it's going to take you eight times longer than you think it will.

By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK, May 21 (Reuters) - New York City is seeing a spike in anti-gay attacks, with two assaults coming within days of the fatal shooting of a gay man over the weekend, the city's police commissioner said on Tuesday. Two men in their early 40s were attacked on a street in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood early on Tuesday morning by two men who shouted anti-gay slurs in Spanish and English and left one victim with a minor eye injury, police said. Late on Monday night, a 45-year-old man was beaten unconscious after spending the evening at bars in Manhattan's East Village with a man he met at a homeless shelter where they both were staying, police said.

On a recent morning in New York, a fashion designer named Samantha Senack discovered an Art Deco chair with soft lines and even softer upholstery-pink mohair, a fabric that is beginning to enjoy cult status. The price? $150. "A total bargain," Senack triumphantly announced. The same afternoon, Marisa Tomei, the Academy Award-winning actress, jumped out of a four-wheel drive vehicle, bought a bath-crystals holder and drove off. Made in France in the 1920s, the enameled-tin relic was priced at $195.

Exhilarating Irish-American band Black 47 has since the early '90s been stirring up the traditional music of the Ould Sod with "rock, reggae, big band, hip-hop, Dixieland, Latin, East Village noise and a couple of kitchen sinks," according to Ireland-born founder, vocalist and guitarist Larry Kirwan. The New York-based sextet always rates a vigorous welcome in Chicago, whether playing Oak Forest's annual Memorial Day weekend Irish Fest -- "We've been coming to Gaelic Park for 10 years, so if we don't show up, we're murdered," cracks Kirwan -- or joining the festivities around St. Patrick's Day (Black 47 plays Wednesday at House of Blues, 329 N. Dearborn St.; 312-923-2000)

Laurie Anderson's new work, "Empty Places," starts as one might expect. Dressed in black (naturally), the spiky-haired singer/composer swoons mantra- like while sawing away on her electric violin, as images of nightfall, Western skies and highways flick around her on several video screens. But that's where the precociousness ends. "Empty Places," which runs through Sunday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is her least pretentious work-an absurdist 90-minute carnival of deadpan standup routines, ruminations on our world and newly honed singing skills.

Craigslist is ugly. It's plain. It has no pictures, no icons. Just rows and rows of blue links on a gray background. But it's mighty entertaining, and useful. The site (www.craigs list.org) includes classified ads, racy personals and raucous discussion groups. Whether you're looking for yoga lessons, a "Satan-fighting cisco switch"--a recent Chicago listing--or a one-night stand, you'll probably find it at Craigslist. Here are some excerpts from the site's "Best-of-Craigslist": - From New York City: $500 /0br--Large Manhattan Room (one catch)